


teach me how to be okay

by emphasizedistruction



Category: Twenty One Pilots
Genre: Depression, Diary/Journal, Friendship, Graphic Depictions of Illness, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Recovery, Slow Burn, description of being suicidal, of sorts, that evolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-09-27 16:21:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20410711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emphasizedistruction/pseuds/emphasizedistruction
Summary: tyler's days are numbered. he keeps a record of his last moments here.





	1. entry I

I don’t know what you’re expecting from this. 

I would just turn the page. In fact, keep doing so until you reach the very end. That’s the most significant piece of this entire thing, anyhow. 

The end. 

But should you ever find no end to your morbid curiosity as to why I did it, you’ll find what I hope to be a fulfilling enough answer in the pages to follow. I can’t guarantee how many of those there will be. 

Some of you will call me selfish. Most of you will think it but never dare say it out loud in fear of ridicule for speaking ill on a dead person. 

Screw that. Some people deserve to be spoken of poorly even in death. Hell, maybe I’m one of those people. That’s for you to decide. 

I stopped making decisions a long time ago. 

Which is crucial to my point- I am past the point of any significance. I rarely speak most days. I have no real impact on anything around me. I am merely a vessel. 

You might say I’m twisted for dragging it out; for keeping a record of my last days here. Well to that I say nothing but that you are absolutely right. 

And, well. I don’t feel so sad anymore; so this isn’t me trying to break everyone’s heart with a tragic story of insurmountable struggle. I am not going to tell you that I’ve ‘come to peace’ with things because peace would require a sense of euphoria, which we all know is a sack of shit. We’ll instead say something more along the lines of ‘he swallowed his misery like a dry pill. It sat, constant and uncomfortably at the bottom of his throat; but hey, it didn’t kill him. Until it did.” 

  
  
  


Without any further ado, here it is, dear reader. The beginning of my journey to the end. 

-


	2. day I

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tylerandjennarehavingakidWHATTHEFUCK!  
I am so incredibly happy for them holy crap you guys tyler is gonna be the best dad I AM NOT READY FOR THAT ExTREME UWU CONTENT  
is it offensive to right fanfic now lol idk who cares here's the next chapter of my story!!!!

Tap.

Tap. 

TAP. 

Tyler’s pencil tip meets the face of the moleskin journal in a steady recession. 

He felt engrossed in anguish, yet not at all fazed by the fact. It was a strange phenomenon. His mind drew blanks when he thought of what to do with himself. 

Of course it did. The _ thing _in his head rarely ever worked the way it was intended to. 

In what you would say was under a minute, Tyler’s gone from the single chair at his sad excuse for a dining room table. His legs move. His head doesn’t. His eyes stay shut a lot of the time; only opening them if he feels he’s steered a little too far off the sidewalk. 

_ What? _ He doesn’t want his death to traumatize innocent children. All wide-eyed and paralyzed when they see his mangled body on the street; ice cream cone once previously occupied in their small hand abandoned on the sun-baked cement- you get it. The whole spheal.

So he avoids getting hit by cars. He realizes it wouldn’t be an issue if he kept his eyes open, but, whatever. 

It’s not cold outside, yet he pulls his jacket tighter against himself anyway. It makes him feel a little less distinguished in the midst of his lively surroundings. No children though. Maybe he wouldn’t open his eyes tonight. 

He passes a bar. He knows this not because he saw it, but because he could hear the indistinct conversations and dull thud of techno coinciding in a symphony of noise throughout the 30 seconds it took to pass the immediate vicinity. 

There’s a homeless man shuffling about on the farthest side of the sidewalk. That, or a really excited rat. Tyler opens his eyes the smallest fraction to assure himself. But when he observes through the small slit, he’s only met with an empty plastic bottle rolling aimlessly in the breeze. 

It’s not concerning enough for him to open his eyes fully, but he does allow himself to fall slack against whatever building the noise had been close to. He drags his body against the surface of the rough brick until it’s level with the equally rough concrete. 

It’s never enough to ease the burning that consumes him internally. No matter how intense the pain he might induce physically, it has not _once compared_ to… yeah, you get it. 

So consider the next few events with that in mind. 

Tyler feels a presence looming. He lifts his head the minutest amount, as though he could sniff out the potential predator like a wolf or something. 

He briefly thinks that being a wolf would be kinda cool. 

The presence is exposed and Tyler looks up fully to gauge the situation, not making any attempt to leave; which is what any rational person would waste no time in doing. In his defense, anyone who knew him well would also know why Tyler could never be considered a rational person. Nobody really knew him well, though. 

Whoever it is, they pose no immediate threat. A bag filled to the brim weighs heavy on their back, the first to meet the concrete with a variety of different noises to accompany the action. Second is them, and they show no sign of emotion during the entire process. Tyler wonders if this person is doing what he is, only they dragged their days out past their last check and are now just panhandling until they earn enough cash for a gun. 

He needs to stop making scenarios about strangers with mental health problems. 

His eyes close fully again and he drifts away from the world for a moment. Away from the noise of the bustling cars, away from the rough brick against his back; away from the ominous back-packer just feet away from him. 

The wind blows his hair but he doesn’t register the sensation. The only thing occupying his focus are thoughts of the world being froze; everything in existence simply being paused and discarding the remote so that nobody can press play again. 

It would save him and this homeless person a lot of trouble. 

Speaking of which, Tyler’s attention is brought back to the person shuffling about slightly to the left of him. He cranes his neck obscurely and notices the person eagerly searching their pockets. 

Before he can turn his head and avoid confrontation, the figure meets his (considerably weak) eye contact and speaks. 

“You got a light?”

\-------------------------


	3. day I

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Tyler hasn’t spoken in weeks, much less to another human being. It shouldn’t have been so hard for him to simply answer the question, but not unlike most other things the prospect of doing it made his muscles tense unpleasantly. 

So he stayed quite, closing his eyes once again with no intent to open them until he couldn’t be distinguished from the dark of the night and the exterior of the wall. He shut his eyes so violently he starts to see patterns bloom behind them. He wondered if something similar would occur when he shut his eyes for good. He would be okay with that. 

He thinks that he doesn’t have a choice to be okay with it; he’ll have to accept the reality of whatever happens when he ceases living. 

“You alright over there?” 

Another prompt to respond, but Tyler doesn’t. He wasn’t alright and he thinks he’s making that fact pretty obvious. He would be embarrassed, but like he established earlier, he has no capacity to feel things anymore. 

All at once the man (Tyler distinguished from the deepness of his voice) stood up. He knows only because the commotion from the over-stuffed backpack gave it away. What was even more surprising than this, however, was the fact that Tyler was starting to feel  _ angry.  _

And god, did it feel  _ good.  _

“Stay away.” 

The words left his mouth like venom leaves the tip of a snake’s fang during an attack. His voice was extremely hoarse and considerably weak from a lack of use, but it was there and could be heard. 

There was no hint of any further interaction between the two of them. Tyler just wanted to sit there and dwell in the first real emotion he’s been able to grasp in weeks. He could feel it bubble at the pit of his stomach; flow through his veins starting at his head and traveling the whole way down to his- 

“Feet.” 

The back-packer hadn’t physically traveled any distance, but their voice did. Tyler looked up. They were standing against the wall now, their gaze landing directly on Tyler’s sad, empty, huddled figure. 

“Your feet.” he wiggles his own covered in tattered, barely-there sneakers for emphasis, “-do you always wear two different shoes?” 

Tyler’s eyes roam down to his shoes. Sure enough, on the right foot sits one of his old vans with a rip in the seam from a time simpler than this. On the left sits a blue converse; one of the last purchases he made before he reached the peak of his unwillingness to exist. 

After the observation, he traces the length of the man’s body back up to his face, noticing the overall quality was lacking immensely. 

“Do you always bum lighters off people?” he counters, not bothering to offer a response to the initial question. Tyler never really does that- answer questions. He prefers to not give anyone definitive responses about himself. 

“Only when they seem like they could use the company,” 

Tyler doesn’t know why he’s entertaining this man. At the very most he likely wanted money for reasons someone in his situation would need it- but Tyler had no money and no desire to give back to the earth in any way. It failed him. He wasn’t going to invest in something that  _ failed  _ him _ .  _

“I have nothing for you.” he establishes this very sternly, still clinging onto that anger. “So don’t waste your time.” 

Tyler hears a chuckle. 

“You mad because you didn’t look down before leaving? 

And for some bizarre reason completely unbeknownst to him, Tyler’s incapability to feel much of anything in the last few weeks of his ending life comes spiraling down on him with an opposite effect; his chest burns and his heart is pounding fiercely inside of his chest. He feels like a firework just sparked and burning the length it takes to ignite the explosive. 

“I’m mad,” his voice is loud now. Powerful. The man looks taken back. “because the world didn’t  _ look down  _ on  _ me _ .” 

He doesn’t know why, after admitting this in his bout of anger, he feels lighter. 

“The world does that sometimes,” the man responds, not phased by Tyler’s outburst. 

That was a first. 

Why was Tyler experiencing any  _ firsts  _ right now? The entire reason he was still here was to experience all the  _ lasts  _ of things that he could. 

In a clear indication that he had nothing else to say, Tyler stood up to walk away. 

“Wait!” 

The backpacker called after him, and soon Tyler heard the ruckus of all their belongings clattering together as they ran to catch up with Tyler. 

How else could his night be skewed by this person? 

A little breathless, they’re finally face-to-face with Tyler. He observes the features of them that he couldn’t from afar and in the dark. The faint lamp-post doesn’t do them much more justice, but Tyler can tell underneath their struggles is a decent-looking person. 

Why he made note of this irrelevant detail he had no idea. 

In a swift movement, the stranger brings their bag to the front of them, unzips the zipper, rummages through the large number of unknown items, and finally pulls out something that leaves Tyler’s mouth a little dry. 

In his hand is a red converse, the same style as the blue one he’s wearing. It’s even for the right foot. 

The stranger nods at him, and then he’s gone. 

Tyler clutches the shoe to his chest the entire duration of his walk home. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we luv symbolism :)

**Author's Note:**

> whether you're a new reader or you've been with me for a while..... hi. 
> 
> for those of you who for some reason remember me, it would be easy for me not to address my absence, or explain why I deleted all my works.... so that exactly what I'm gonna do ahaueueueu
> 
> i will say this: just got a new laptop, wooop, (kinda had to cuz yo girl in college now) and im very, i mean v e r y, slowly getting back into the groove of writing. kinda lost myself for a minute there. still kinda looking for sis. and this story I hope is somewhat reflective of that. 
> 
> each chapter will switch between an entry in tyler's journal and an 'irl' chapter 
> 
> thanks for reading. stay tuned if you want. 
> 
> feels good to be here again. <3


End file.
